Right to Suffer
by Natasha Shaitanova
Summary: After the funeral, everything seems to fall apart. This story notes the perspectives of various characters following the fateful fight at the Tower. Everyone needs to suffer sometimes: it is their right, to clear up their minds, to face reality.
1. Chapter 1

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Right to Suffer

By Natasha Shaitanova

Chapter 1: Harry Potter

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Disclaimer: I don't own _Harry Potter_. Rowling does. Woohoo for her, boohoo for me :).

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A/N: ok, this used to be a oneshot, but I decided I wanted to continue it for a few more characters.

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Harry threaded his fingers through thin blades of grass as he sat beside the Hogwarts lake. It was quiet. Not a single student voice could be heard—they were still in mourning. Fang was whinnying softly beside Hagrid's cabin, but the sound was negligible.

Sirius was gone. Dumbledore was gone. Even Snape and Malfoy were gone. The two latter individuals had been the bane of his existence at Hogwarts, but the departure of those snarky, biting comments had left a void in him.

Harry leaned back against the thick tree, ignoring the sharp bark digging into his back through the thin, white school shirt. His breathing was shallow—Harry avoided taking deep, fulfilling breaths—they would feel too good. He wasn't ready to feel good.

He missed a lot of things. He missed the annoying twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes. He missed Sirius's doglike peals of laughter. He missed the soft, cinnamon silk of Ginny's hair. He missed Draco's flashing grey eyes as he prepared to scream _Crucio_.

He would go on fighting. It was his duty, his burden, his fate.

Hedwig landed lightly on top of his bent knees, hooting once before falling silent in respect of his melancholy. She nipped gently at a finger and nudged his hand, but flew away over the shining water as a light breeze stirred her feathers.

Harry did not want to go. He did not want to walk through the hallways to face both sympathetic and expectant faces. He did not want interviews with Ministry officials. He did not want to watch Slytherins from his year become Death Eaters and the Gryffindors become hardened Aurors. He especially did not want to watch them all die the miserable deaths of war's pawns.

Harry just wanted to suffer. As he sat on the moist ground beside the cerulean water and watched ravens fly over it, avoiding the swinging tentacles of the giant squid, he did not need Hermione to tell him to eat, or Ron to tell him to speak, or Professor McGonagall to tell him to sleep. Harry wanted the precious solitude in which to make sense of his jumbled thoughts.

He craved the few moments in which he could acknowledge the dead and grieve for them. In the middle of a war, and as the figurehead for the so-called Light Side, Harry was expected to remain unshakable, strong, determined. He was not meant to shed tears; he was meant to give dry eulogies filled with motivational rhetoric. He was not allowed to feel. That was best left to the public.

Harry wanted to feel alive. He was dying of suppressing the horrors of his dead and the memories of the dead. He wanted to let it go, to release the gripping clench of his chest. He was suffocating under the pressure his mind imposed upon him, but he was not allowed to break.

Harry chocked back a sob and ground his fist into the grass. He was not allowed to cry.

The skies were darkening overhead as evening set in, throwing its black shawl over the school grounds. A light drizzle began, driving the few remaining students back inside. Harry welcomed the raindrops—perhaps if it rained enough, he could sneak in a tear or two and no one would see.

His shoulders shook and his breathing became ragged. Harry no longer saw the navy waves lapping at the pebbles.

Sirius was yelling at his mother, pulling viciously at the ratty curtain. Draco was sneering at Harry as he sped past on his broom. Humming lightly, Dumbledore was offering Harry the lemon drops. Snape was growling at him from above the penseive, pointing his black wand at his forehead. Ginny was glowing as he swept her in his arms after the Quiddich game. Sirius falling through the veil…Lupin grabbing his arms…Draco crashing in a bloody heap …Dumbledore pleading him to stop…Snape yelling as curses flew…Sirius laughing…Draco crying…Dumbledore speaking to Snape…Sirius, Draco, Dumbledore, Snape…

Salty drops slid into his open mouth, but Harry could not tell if they were rain or tears. His chest heaved sharply as he hiccupped, curling to rest his forehead on his knees. Rain was splattering hard on his black locks, but Harry did not care. Somewhere in the distance, a mournful melody interwove itself with the rustling of the rain as Fawkes joined Harry in his lament.

Harry did not care that he had become one with the ground as dirt seeped into his jeans. He did not care that somewhere in the Gryffindor tower Hermione was berating Ron for leaving him alone on the grounds. He did not care that Scrimgeor was furiously pacing his office, at a loss of how to handle the latest fiasco. He did not care that at the Riddle House, Voldemort was celebrating the demise of his mentor.

No, Harry did not care. Harry just wanted his right.

His right to suffer.

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A/N: Okaay...tell me what you think! Please take a second to review. Next up: Draco.


	2. Chapter 2

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Right To Suffer

By Natasha Shaitanova

Chapter 2: Draco Malfoy

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Disclaimer: I do not own the characters. Rowling does. I just own the convoluted thoughts I stuff in their heads.

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A/M: Ok, this story started out as a little oneshot about Harry, but I decided that Draco fit the topic so perfectly that I had to add this chapter. More may follow…

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He was curled tightly in a stained old armchair, shivering slightly as an occasional breeze crept in through the cracks in the windowpane. His right hand clutched at his knees, pulling them closer to his chest, while his left traced the faded patterns on the worn cloth.

Spinner's End was cold and dank, despite the low fire flickering in the fireplace just feet away from his seat. Snape had left a hour ago with Wormtail, to "run intervention" with the Dark Lord, as he put it.

He snorted. Intervention, indeed. He failed and there was nothing to change that fact.

Draco rested his cheek against the back of the armchair and tried to ignore the stale odor. He had thought, for those few moments, that he actually had a chance. When the old man had bargained with him, offering all Draco could have wanted as though his thoughts were laid bare, it seemed that not all hope was lost.

Draco flinched and shuddered in his fetal position, much as he had when the door to the top of the tower had burst open behind him, cutting off his last thread of hope.

What if he had accepted? Better yet, _could_ he have accepted?

"Bullshit," Draco mumbled into his knees. What good would it have done him? The old man was dead seconds after his offer, leaving Draco cold again.

No one was going to save him. There was no happy ending, no refuge. Dumbledore was dead, and with him any hope of getting the Light side to spare his life. And yet, Dumbledore was not dead by _his_ hand so there was no chance of the Dark Lord sparing his life either.

"After all, dear father fucked up," Draco thought bitterly as he tried to stifle stinging tears with harsh, crude words. It didn't help.

He felt like a…rodent, trapped in a cage. He felt like back in fourth year when he was a lowly ferret lying in pain on the cold stone floor in the Hogwarts corridor, with Moody growling above him. Only now, it was the Dark Lord threatening him and there was no father to hide behind.

Draco rubbed his left arm and threw his head back, letting a shuddering sob trail off into the frigid air of the empty room. He was trapped. He could only wonder if he would perhaps be granted another hour or two before the physical torture would begin.

He had no illusions. A Malfoy never harbored illusions, his father had said.

"And look at father now," Draco chocked out a humorless chuckle, before letting the sentence sink in. He froze for a moment before flinging himself out of the armchair, as though suddenly overpowered and unable to breathe for its suffocating odor.

He turned in a half circle, wildly raising and lowering his hands, eyes racing. His breathing was erratic as he grasped at his chest and paced a few steps back and forth in front of the fireplace.

"No…no!" Draco's vision swam, from both the unshed tears and his mind's hysterics, the corners of his eyes darkening slightly as his lungs burned for oxygen.

He crashed sideways into the wall and slid down into a heap, much as when he lay in a pool of water and blood in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom.

"No!"

Draco gasped as his body felt numb and his thoughts raced. This was the end.

"No!"

The house was silent, but Draco could swear he heard footsteps, voices. They were coming for him. His granted time had run out.

"NO!"

Salty rivulets slid down his pale, clammy face, pooling at his jugular. He drew his legs up to his chest again and sat still, holding his breath. he glanced around at the shadows of the room, taking in their still, docile shapes.

No. They weren't coming.

They were leaving him to suffer on his own accord, trapped as much in the house as in his mind. He knew he was going to die, though not after a few well-placed _Crucios_, but that wasn't enough for the bastard.

Draco raised his eyes and stared into the fire. _This_ was his torture. He was bound, chained, with no escape. No one to turn to, and no where to run. Just like a rodent in a cage.

"They'll keep me here until I go insane," Draco hiccupped as he laughed, letting out a hacking sound akin to a raven's cry, "And then they'll give me to my mother! Yes! To kill me would be too kind…"

And yet, as Draco thought of Narcissa, his hysterics faded to be replaced with just one crying, shaking boy.

He was suffering. Suffering for his father's choices, suffering for his father's mistakes, suffering for his own hesitance, suffering for…he was not sure.

Draco was only sure that at least he was allowed this…this convoluted right. His right to suffer alone, before he was subjected to the inevitable jeers and curses.

So he took it.

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A/N: okay…well, the title said it all, so the theme was obviously the same. I know, Draco_ was_ a bit insane. But what else do you expect? He was virtually a kid on a two-hour death row—freaky. Sooooo…….**review!** Come on :) take a second…. 


	3. Chapter 3

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Right to Suffer

By Natasha Shaitanova

Chapter 3: Remus Lupin

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**Disclaimer**: still don't own _Harry Potter_. Owning this little story will have to suffice.

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He was disgraceful.

She was magnificent—vibrant, optimistic, loving, young, beautiful.

He was…none of that.

She held his hand at the funeral and he had allowed it, too lost in his own self-pity to notice or care.

He was shameful.

As she skipped down the dark-wood, dirty staircase to join a group of Aurors in preventing the latest Death Eater raid, he was holed up in the attic, stroking Buckbeak's feathers and silently grieving.

He was weak.

Dumbledore would not have wished this upon him, but he was not thinking of Dumbledore. The old man's death had broken the dam he had built to keep his sorrow behind and now he could do little but drown slowly in the teary waters that engulfed him.

She looked up at him with shining eyes, full of promise and hope, telling him age didn't matter, war didn't matter, past didn't matter. She glowed as she pecked him on the cheek, blushed as she took hold of his hand. Her smile faltered in the few moments she almost realized he hadn't noticed.

She professed her love for him, but he knew better than be moved. How could he condemn such an exquisite creature to be bound to a wounded, dying beast?

He leaned against the hippogriff's side, sighing heavily as the odd creature crooned softly in his ear.

How much longer would he last? For a little over a year now, he was wasting away, mind and body. Slowly, he had come to embrace the idea of death, almost welcoming it. Now, he wished for it.

As Sirius fell through the veil, a look of surprise graced his face—his aging, but still strikingly elegant face. His body arched slowly out of sight and as he thought back to that moment, it seemed so tranquil, almost peaceful. Sirius had simply flitted away—away from the malicious, spiteful world they were all confined to.

He wondered if he could do the same.

He traced designs in the thick layers of dust on the attic floor, trying to remember his Ancient Runes class, so many years ago. Sirius had never liked the class, although he had conned his friend into joining. What was it that he said? Oh yes, "It's a dead discipline, just like Latin is a dead language. Stuff that stupid homework, Moony, let's sneak out!"

Old? Yes. Dead? Surely not.

He dragged his finger across the dust, carefully drawing one of the few runes he still recalled vividly.

_Condolesco_. Suffer.

He had memorized it while recovering from a full moon in the hospital wing. Sirius had then grabbed the textbook out of his hands and threw it to the side, accusing it of making him even gloomier. He proceeded to replace it with a handful of chocolate frogs.

He wanted to smile at the memory, but his muscles refused to obey. His hand kept moving as he traced another symbol next to the first.

_Iuris_. Latin for "right".

He did not want Tonks to rush up the stairs and knock insistently on the door until he caved and let her in, unwilling to be the cause of her tears.

He did not want to hear Molly Weasley order him to eat, only to end up hugging him with assurances that Albus would not have wanted him to grieve.

He did not want to look Harry in the eyes and see the regret and sorrow almost identical to his own.

He could only be grateful that, unlike Harry, he was not needed. No one counted on him to live, to stay strong.

Tonks would cry when he left, but she would survive. She would go on fighting and she would find another. Such was life.

He was no longer a part of life. A piece of him had died with Lily, with James, with Peter, but he knew he was finished when the veil fluttered to a stop.

He hated himself for being selfish, for inevitably hurting Tonks, and he could only assure himself that it was for the better. How could he love when he was already dead?

He looked up into Buckbeak's deep cerulean eyes, only slightly duller than Sirius's. he stroked his hand through the slick feathers, wishing they were the fine strands of an onyx mane. Closing his eyes, he leaned against the warm body of the beast and pictured the runes he had drawn in the dust, so crooked and pale.

His friend was waiting for him, but he would not rush. The burning in his chest intensified and his body numbed, but he only welcomed the discomfort.

Sirius could wait a while longer. James had waited for fifteen years already. Peter…Peter was not waiting.

He retraced the runes in his mind. Right to suffer. It was his. It was only fair.

James had suffered. Sirius had suffered. Peter will forever suffer.

He forced the corners of his mouth to curve upward and he leaned further toward the hippogriff. He had suffered all his life as a werewolf; it became almost habitual. Now, he believed, was for a better reason. He would forego love of romance for love of friendship.

Miles away, Nymphadora Tonks felt uneasy.

In the attic of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black, Remus Lupin consummated his final right.

He still had a light smile on his face when the suffering ceased.

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A/N: Hm…they keep getting more depression, don't they? Well, **leave a review or a comment**if you please:)

-NS


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